That human nature becoming seriously violent within the system of the death penalty and a jail is what this film serenely gazes into. An execution scheduled to be carried out in 12 years creates a hostile and stifling atmosphere among guards. This has profound effects on the dehumanization of Jae-kyoung, a young, newly appointed guard who nonetheless happens to find that a coldblooded colleague of his, Jong-ho, has some humane traits.
        [Executioner] is a human drama portraying a variety of circumstances between human beings and law. Further, such a status is achieved by representing inextricably interwoven emotions of the guards who stand aside between the public and personal sphere. The prison depicted in this film is a social institution which is interpellated as somewhere humane, yet makes the inhumanness of the ordinary even more inhumane. (LEE Sang-yong)